A/C is becoming more common in light commercial situations, e.g. offices and small shops, but as far as residential is concerned it's extremely rare here.

As for Ireland, most people could not justify the expense for the two weeks in summer when it might be used, although if we keep getting summers like this year's they might reconsider! As is typical in Britain, I think we're still way behind North America and Scandinavia when it comes to heat pumps. Most (non-technical) people I speak to have never heard of them.

Pollution from coal fires was a big problem in British cities years ago, and led to the various Clean Air Acts of the 1950s/60s.

One of the worst smogs occurred in London in the early 1950s:
[Linked Image from portfolio.mvm.ed.ac.uk]

My parents remembered this one well, and told stories of people stumbling into shops and pubs asking "Where are we?" because they had gotten completely disoriented, even though they were in areas they knew well.

A couple of links:

The London Smog Disaster of 1952

The Great Smog of 1952